“It is vain for you that ye rise up early, and so late take rest, And eat the bread of toil: For so he giveth unto his beloved sleep.” That is the motto to write under the picture of Christ in the boat on the stormy sea. Our Lord here, as elsewhere, is manifestly expressing Himself in the proverbial manner. It is the proverbial manner to express a thing by an extreme one-sided instance. We have noticed this repeatedly: and that, for this reason, one proverbial utterance may need to be balanced by another contrary one. Thus, on another occasion our Lord bids us take thought of what His service will involve, looking towards the future like a man who is about to build a house or a king who is preparing for a campaign. Here He is putting the other thought, that we are to cast all our care upon God our Father, who careth on our behalf. But indeed if taking this passage alone you think of the metaphors which our Lord employs――metaphors of the flowers of the field and the birds of the air――you will see that what He means to warn us against is anxiety, not prevision. For think of the growth of the plant; it is always looking towards the future in its own instinctive way; the process by which it grows is a gradual process; all its activity is directed towards the preparation of the seeds by which the permanence of the species is secured. And so with the birds when they build their nests: they are making provision. Everything is done by bird and plant in view of the future, but done with a tranquillity which reposes unconsciously upon the purpose of God. What they do unconsciously we are to do consciously. Here, then, is a lesson specially necessary for our time. There is no greater plague of our generation than the nervous anxiety which characterizes all its efforts. How many people are there who make their health much worse than it would naturally be, because they are always morbidly anxious about their symptoms or some possibility of infection. Again and again it is anxiety about health which is a main cause of our unserviceableness in doing our duty. We ought to be reasonably careful and to go boldly forward in the peace of God. Again, how many good schemes fail because people are so nervously anxious about their success that they never reach that condition of peaceful persistence in work which is necessary if it is to be fruitful. “Semper agens, semper quietus”――“always at work, always tranquil”――that is the right motto.